ON THE RIGHT NOTEam not a Hebrewqawaal,” says ShyeBen-Tzur. “I’ve neverbeen one and neverwill be.” But becausethe Israeli singerloves the music ofAjmer’s Sufi qawa-als, and because he sings inHebrew, the media has anointedhim the Hebrew qawaal.“In Hebrew there is no tradi-tion of qawaali,” protests Ben-Tzur. “I just workwith Sufi qawaals.” That work has resulted in hisnew album, Shoshan.Ben-Tzur’s journey from Israel to Ajmer’s dar-gahs is a story about the serendipity of music. Bornin the United States, Ben-Tzur grew up in Israel,listening to the standards — rock, progressiverock, the classics. He was the singer in a highschool band, Sword of Damocles.“We did rock, heavy metal, progressive, youknow different things,” he says. “It was just a highschool band. But the good thing is it led me to dif-ferent kinds of music.”That included world music, the amorphousgenre that has become a catch-phrase for all kindsof music from samba to tribal chants. Ben-Tzurcame across Indian music when he was about 17.Hearing tabla maestro Zakir Hussain and flautistHariprasad Chaurasia at a concert changed his life.“It was fascinating; it still is,” he says. “Just twopeople and a tanpura player on stage playing onescale for one hour without any harmony change,and it really touched the heart. It was like a solorecital, but it was so complete — minimum peopleand maximum music.”That was when he decided he wanted to go toIndia. “I wanted to go to the place where the musiccame from,” he says, adding that he was quite naïveat that time. He just landed in India with “aromantic attitude. I didn’t know there was such arich tradition within Indian music. So many differ-ent kinds of music,” he says.Ben-Tzur is just one of thousands of Israelis vis-iting India these days, many of them fresh off anarmy stint. India offers a cheap place to unwind in,maybe even get a dose of spirituality. Ben-Tzur sayshe thinks Israelis at some level feel a connectionwith “a civilization that has ancient roots, wherethey see people worshipping in the same templeperhaps for hundreds of years.”He thought he would find the “traditional guruand follow the traditional path.” Reality was morecomplex. Contemporary India was very differentfrom the India of gurukuls and gharanas. At onelevel it allowed a complete outsider like him accessinto the world of music, which might have beentougher half a century ago. But it was also difficultoften being the only foreigner around. He remem-bers those early days going from one place toanother, learning, meeting teachers.One of his first gurus was the great Indian classi-cal vocalist Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar. “I don’tplay dhrupad now,” says Ben-Tzur. “But he is anocean with never-ending depth. I still regard himas my biggest inspiration.”Ben-Tzur lived with Dagar for a year in Bhopal.He was the only foreigner, and at that time he did-n’t speak any Indian language. They got up at fourin the morning and started riyaaz, practicing onenote till six. “Then a few more notes till seven,” hesays. “So it went on till you went to sleep at 11 atnight. It was intense.”For a musician from the Western tradition, Ben-Tzur said he had to re-orient himself in many ways.“Western music is written. Indian music is more ofan oral tradition,” says Ben-Tzur. “It is hard to get adeep understanding of something that is very pre-“Icise and a big mystery at thesame time.”He had to unlearn old habits.“Music is a language, a refinedand subtle language,” he says.“But it’s not just vocabulary. It’salso about accent.”He says unlike a spoken lan-guage where the accent doesn’tmatter as long as the wordsmake sense, “in music accentmatters. So, a rock musicianplaying jazz might be spotted as not being the realthing. To play it right you have to unlearn your oldaccent.”Ben-Tzur says that’s still something he is workingon. At the same time he has realized he is an Israelimusician working in an Indian tradition. “I knowthat though I love Indian music there is no reasonto give up the culture I come from,” he says. “Mymusic needs to be honest. So, I went back to writ-ing in my own language.”He has written and composed most of the songson Shoshan. He says the vision was a “collection oflove songs to the divine.” Structurally the songs fol-low “a raga in a basic way” says Ben-Tzur, the“asthai leading into the antara,” but it reaches intohis Western training when it comes to arrange-ment and production — “for example, putting inchords.”“Ten years ago, I would not have been able to doit,” he says. “It was a challenge to create music thatspeaks both languages without harming either tra-dition.”For help, Ben-Tzur reached out to friends andartistes in both traditions. Flamenco guitaristFernando Perez and Grammy-nominated bassistand producer Yossi Fine from Israel lent their tal-ents as did Indian vocalist Shubha Mudgal.“I wanted to have the nylon-stringed guitar as abasic element throughout the album,” says Ben-Tzur. “You hear the guitar in Indian rock, but notmuch elsewhere. I was fascinated to hear how itwould sound. And I fell in love with Perez’s spirit.”As for Fine, he says he needed his touch to makemusic “groovy and funky.”Ben-Tzur had performed with Mudgal at a Sufimusic festival and fallen in love with her voice —“the classical background, but a voice that carriesweight.” He thought she would be perfect for asong like Daras Bin, which he had composed with“a deep sense of yearning in it.”Much of the album, rooted in the Sufi musicaltradition, is scored with a sense of yearning. Ben-Tzur says he’s keenly aware that in the dargahs ofKhwaja Moinuddin Chisti the music he hears is“not entertainment, but part of ritual — a path todevotion.” He feels privileged that as “an outsider”he was welcomed by the Sufi singers.“Shoshan is my way of expressing my love back,but in Hebrew,” he says. As an Israeli, he grew up“being exposed to only one side of Middle East’spolitical struggles. I am touched to see a whole dif-ferent side of Islam — there is love. To sit with thislove and be able to create music is amazing.”It has also meant that some call him and hismusic a bridge between these two desert tradi-tions. Ben-Tzur says that embarrasses him. “I amtouched to be thought of as promoting peace andreligious co-existence, but I don’t perceive myselfas someone on a mission,” he says. “I’m just a musi-cian. People give me crowns too big for my head.”But deliberate or not, the bridge building is hap-pening. Ben-Tzur now lives in Jaipur with his fam-ily. His wife is Indian, the daughter of a Sufi schol-ar. He says his 5-year-old daughter was just play-ing Radha at her school. “And that is completelydifferent from my background and my wife’s, but itwas beautiful. Life surprises you.” ;Sandip Roy tellsthe story ofShye Ben-Tzur, aIsraeli musician whofound hiscalling in Sufi music